As the mercury rises, the retail tills ring out and the reckonings are reckoned, it's that time of year again. Yes, it's time for you all to choose the Public Address Word of the Year 2012 -- and because we recently turned 10 years old, the Public Address Word of the Decade.

The selection format is the same as in previous years: candidate words and phrases will be proposed and debated in this thread here. After about a week, I'll compile the candidates into a list for voting and a few days thereafter we will have a winner.

Actually, we'll have more than one winner. Thanks to the good and decent folk at the southern hemisphere's finest whisky store, Whisky Galore, there will be three winners. A $100 Whisky Galore gift voucher will go to the first readers who suggest the word of the year and decade respectively in the discussion, and the other to a voter drawn at random from the poll.

So, what's it likely to be?

Last year, the word "munted" found its its destiny -- beating out popular memes "nek minnit" and "ghost chips" for the top slot.

In 2010, of course, Public Address readers bypassed the news and opted for a neologism -- the ungendered genital insult that was "twatcock". In 2009, the list was dominated by words involving Michael Laws and an “h” and in 2008, "credit crunch" came in ahead of "rofflenui". In 2007, another coinage, "Te Qaeda" topped the poll and in 2006, the big word was "unbundled".

I have my favourites for 2012, but it's not about me. It's all about you. Go forth and discuss!

The Public Address Word of the Year 2012 and the Public Address Word of the Decade are kindly sponsored by Whisky Galore.

I feel like this year so many events have had their own hashtag to define them that I'll nominate

Hashtag

Events having hashtags of their own is not new for 2012. Afterall, #eqnz was a nominee in both 2010 and 2011. What is new for 2012 is "hashtag" becoming a word in its own right. People talk about hashtags without needing to gloss what it means. And check out the IRL spoken use of such lol phrases as "hashtag woteva". And then there's the news that a new parent had (maybe) named their child hashtag. Yeah, the word has become its own thing in 2012. #hashtag